Basil Revived

I had to chose between this photo and a photo of the gorgeous, multi-hued tomato bruschetta we had for dinner last night. It was not a hard choice; you can see a pretty picture anywhere. I want you to understand the culinary magic that happened when I put a few leaves of this sad-looking basil in a bowl of cold water for about half an hour. I knew you could perk up wilted lettuce by soaking it, and I had just read about doing in with zucchini (you cut the ends off and soak it, whole, for 30 minutes), so I tried it with my basil. (I can never keep basil fresh.) It ended up firm, almost crisp. It worked best with the leaves that hadn't developed any black spots, because clearly those didn't go away. But the ones that were green through came back to life.

Most Popular

I think it only works right before you're ready to use it. I added it to my bruschetta topping. I quartered pretty little orange, yellow and red cherry tomatoes and tossed in some salt. Then I toasted thick slices of ciabatta and rubbed the toasted side with a cut garlic clove and drizzled with olive oil. Added ribbons of basil to the tomatoes, then topped the bread with the tomato mixture. I think it's good if it sits for a little while, maybe 20 minutes, to let the bread soak up some of the tomato juice. (Another idea is to rub the toasted bread with the cut side of a tomato.)

We had fish with our bruschetta, but any basic protein would do. You've got your vegetables and carbohydrate rolled into one. Here are a couplemore ideas, and a tomato salad that's a little more complicated than my topping but still pretty easy and good on toast, too.